House-Hunting Mistakes You Really Don’t Want to Make

The Globe and Mail has an interesting article today that outlines eight common mistakes people make when buying a home.

As the article asserts:

“Buying a home is a very emotional process, and allowing those emotions to get the best of you can cause you to make any number of mistakes.”

Its true, and, though the rules seem to have resale purchasers first in mind, the same logic applies for people interested in purchasing a new home or condominium.

Here are the Globe’s rules – with our additional rule following them up:

Mistake 1: Falling in love with a house you can’t affordMistake 2: Thinking that a particular house is the only one that will suit youMistake 3: Being so desperate to become a homeowner that you buy a place that doesn’t suit youMistake 4: Overlooking important flaws in the structure, appearance or location of the houseMistake 5: Thinking you’re a handyman when you’re notMistake 6: Putting in an offer before carefully considering all the pros and cons of the propertyMistake 7: Being too slow to pull the triggerMistake 8: Offering more than a house is worth

And the single BuzzBuzzHome mistake to avoid when purchasing new homes and condos specifically. . .

Usually it will, of course, but there may well be important areas where your finished unit is slightly different than, say, a model suite – ceiling heights and standard fixtures in particular may not ultimately be quite as they appear.

The morals of both the Globe’s story and our addition? When buying a new home, try to stay as cool and impartial as possible and do as much research as you can (hello, social media!) before signing the dotted line.